Commercial article printing typically occurs during the production of the article. For example, ball skins are printed with patterns or logos prior to the ball being completed and inflated. Consequently, a non-production establishment, such as a distribution site, which customizes products, for example, in region in which potential product customers support multiple professional or collegiate teams, needs to keep an inventory of products bearing the logos of the various teams. Ordering the correct number of products for each different logo to maintain the inventory can be problematic.
One way to address these issues in non-production outlets would be to keep unprinted versions of the products, and print the patterns or logos on them at the distribution site. Adapting known printing techniques, such as two-dimensional (2-D) media printing technology, to apply image content onto 3-D objects would be difficult. Since the surfaces to be printed must be presented to the print heads as relatively flat, 2-D surfaces, the objects have to be maneuvered carefully to present portions of the articles as parallel planes to the print heads.
One printing system that accomplishes this is disclosed in copending and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/163,880, filed on May 25, 2016, and entitled SYSTEM FOR PRINTING ON THREE-DIMENSIONAL (3D) OBJECTS by Wayne A. Buchar et al, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,827,784. This printing system includes a plurality of print heads arranged in a 2-D array, each printhead being configured to eject marking material, a support member positioned to be parallel to a plane formed by the 2-D array of print heads, a member movably mounted to the support member, an actuator operatively connected to the movably mounted member to enable the actuator to move the moveably mounted member along the support member, an object holder configured to mount to the movably mounted member to enable the object holder to pass the array of print heads as the moveably mounted member moves along the support member, and a controller operatively connected to the plurality of print heads and the actuator, the controller being configured to operate the actuator to move the object holder past the array of print heads and to operate the plurality of print heads to eject marking material onto objects held by the object holder as the object holder passes the array of print heads. This application is included herein by reference for the practice of the present disclosure in its entirety.
A problem with this approach is that it requires the added cost of a unique part gripper for each part that is to be printed. Part grippers are currently machined metal brackets with dedicated locating and fastening features machined into each gripper. Customer productivity is impacted using these part grippers due to the time required to design and make a unique mounting plate for each part and the costs associated with each part gripper design. A standalone spherical shaped conformable gripper filled with granular material is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 8,882,165 used to pick and place objects and U.S. Pat. No. 7,600,450 shows curvature conformable gripping dies used in the oil industry that do not appear to be readily adaptable to holding objects for 3-D printing.